How Hybrid Cloud Drives Digital Transformation

I ran across an article in Network World that did a beautiful job of laying out the intertwined nature of the growth of hybrid cloud and digital transformation. The author points out that in the 21st century, every business is a software business, and one built for speed and innovation. Agile software development and continuous delivery allow companies to roll out constant updates that can be modified quickly and cheaply as user needs evolve. Cloud’s flexible infrastructure is a natural counterpart: “All that software that’s enabling this transformation toward digital experiences has to run somewhere, and it turns out a hybrid cloud strategy gives businesses maximum choice when it comes to what runs where,” notes author Pete Johnson.

But let’s take it to the next step: If every business in the 21st century is a software business, then data is the new currency for that business. How can you put that data to work to help your business grow and operate at top efficiency?

After all, digital transformation is all about agility and innovation. It’s about building interactive experiences with customers, or delivering real-time updates to a connected car via intuitive and responsive applications. So, it makes sense to take a data-driven approach to make smart decisions on what applications to build, or what changes to make on existing applications. Agile software development (DevOps) must rely on smart data and insights from smart data to provide that direction and guidance. Smart data that comes directly from a hybrid cloud (public and private) environment provides vital, real-time information about applications and services, utilization, performance and user experience.

To fully exploit the hybrid cloud advantage, both enterprises and carrier service providers need to leverage smart data. Smart data provides real-time insights to applications, user behavior, and experience from all cloud-based services and applications. This data provides an invaluable feedback loop to help DevOps build better, and not just faster-to-market solutions.